Virginia wine adds to Curry flavor...

Bringing an end to our usual Sunday night, our laundry was going strong, my wife was up making a delicious dinner, and it was my chore to pick a wine to go with her creation. Tonight's dinner will be a delicious curry with beef. So what region did my wine selection come from????

After great deliberation, I decided on a C-ville favorite White Hall winery. However, with
all their great selections settling on one was a bit tougher. Having not had an exotic grape for a while, I decided on a bottle of their 2009 Touriga National.

It was not a disappointment, the nose was well rounded and complete. It exhibited aromas of vanilla, cardamom, and light red fruit. Additionally, hints of cumin and coriander came through at the end. The wine exhibited warm red fruit with light white pepper flavor. The wine exhibited almost no notable tannins was most prevelent on the front of the tongue. A nice starter red for many non-red drinkers.

The lack of complexity and depth paired well the toned down beef curry. The rice and sugar snap peas rounded out the meal and left that mmm mmm good feeling. This was a nice sunday night meal
and I looked forward to the left overs for tomorrow lunch.

Following the Men with Dark Glasses

We determined that Friday night T.V. has gotten horrible. After enjoying dinner and drinks
with a friend of ours at Shooter Mcgees in Alexandria, VA, and having a busy day of christmas shopping and wine tasting planned tomorrow, the wife and I settled in for some good Friday night T.V.

To our disappointment there was nothing good on, so as we sulked we'd decided on opening some wine and and choose a free on-demand movie. After sorting through the extensive free movie list on Comcast, we pick the 1980 classic, "Blues Brothers." To sooth our disappointment with the T.V. selection we opened a great drinking wine from Chateau O'Brien winery in Markham, VA.






The 2008 Padlock Red was a little less approachable than the previous years vintage, but then again 2007 was a great vintage across the state. The nose was a bit weak with red fruit and spice, but the wine did not disappoint. It displayed red fruit with with firm tannins and many cooking spices. A great tasty treat to share while watching a classic 80's flick.

Old friend spends two nights...

The wife and I usually don't do mid week wine drinking by nature. We enjoy our mid week health kick, however after two long days and I was craving a drink, bourbon would have been my first choice on a night like tonight, but intentionally, I don't leave a stash in the house. My wife had gone out with some girlfriends to celebrate to a birthday and said a night cap would be nice so while watching the DVR'd NCIS we went for our wine stash. Taking a quick look at our everyday wines, we spotted a wine made with some favorite VA varietals from a favorite place in our wall wine rack.

Cuvee Laurent from Delfosse is a blend of two wines that grow particularly well in Virginia Cabrenet Franc and Chamborcin red from Delfosee winery which is just a wee drive south of Charlottesville in Faber, VA.


Night One

Only wanting one glass the first night, we opened the bottle and re-corked it after pouring two glasses. The initial glass smelled of dried red sweet cherries mixed with spice and earth. Taste was very pleasent and a great wine for sipping on the couch. It rang out with bright red fruit, light green pepper mild tannins on the middle of the tongue with a long almost effervessent feel on the middle tongue and cheeks.

Although this wine didn't strike me as having a lot of layers, depth, or width it is great for an evening sipper and left me curious for Friday night when we'd pair it with some grilled bar-b-que chicken pizza.

Night Two

Unfortunately, somehow an additional half glass each seemed to disappear out of the bottle that same night so when Friday came around there was only really one glass left to finish off the rest of the bottle. Instead of having that with dinner, we decided to enjoy it as a pre-cursor as we prepared our bar-b-que chicken pizza.

The couple days in the bottle did nothing to hurt this wine. It smelled of bright red rasberries and a slight burn in the top of the nose. It wasn't probably best sipper and would have been really good with food as it had mellowed greatly. It shared flavors of back raspberries and green bell pepper with just a pop of late tannins as it went down the throat.

It was nice to experience how oxygen can change a wine greatly. It didn't hurt it at all and proves why decanting wine is so important.

An unexpected house guest doesn’t over stay its welcome and leaves on a high note….

So I’m not too proud to admit, I’m a California wine bigot. I go out of my way to avoid California wine. Not that I don’t think they make great wines, but I’ve been jaded by a family uncle who lives and dies by California wine. So given the choice to buy a California wine, or live eternity without wine, I usually choose the latter. So you can imagine my scorn with after recently hosting an early Thanksgiving party with friends, I discovered an unopened bottle of red wine from Sonoma California amongst the left overs.

So it got buried my wine racks to start the process of collecting house dust, never to be drunk. However, after cramming five days of work into three, cleaning the house for the expected real Thanksgiving guests, and starting a fajita dinner, it made an appearance as the wine pairing for dinner. It sat in the decanter while I chopped and made the fajitas and guacamole. With dinner all prepared it was time to swallow my pride and try the beast from out west.

The bottle: “The Path.”
The grape: Cab Sav.
The vintage: 2009.

The nose of the wine was very intense. It was dark plum nose with black currant and cooking spices. The wine showed big red fruit characteristics, deepening layers with mild acidity and very smooth through the finish. Unlike most California wines that exhibit a bit too much oak, this showed none at all an almost pure wine. I would bet it was aged in used oak barrels to bring forth the fruit flavors and just add the proper amount of body.

Although it wasn’t the perfect pairing with our slightly spicy dinner, it showed well enough to compliment the flavors like a good wine will. This single experience won’t soften my general feelings towards CA wine, maybe because I believe there is enough good wine on this side of the Mississippi river to keep me happy for a life time, but it is nice to know that if ever on the left coast and wine tasting, there should be at least a few wines that will make me smile.



***Update…. After writing this I did a search online and could find little about this wine. The make of the wine is the same make of the smoking loon series wine but this particular bottle is very mysterious. I’d appreciate any comments on where I could find more information about it.*******

The good The Bad…and then Cloudy????

With the first weekend of nothing planned what so ever in weeks, the wife and I were amazed how our Saturday was so relaxing. A quick trip to the gym, lunch with my uncle, and then it was time to hit a winery. As it was already 2 P.M., we decided to hit one that was close. Having not been to Winery at La Grange since spring, it was an obvious choice. So a quick drive out I-66 to Haymarket and it became clear, we had made a mistake. I forgot I got the e-mail earlier that week that they were having a fall festival this weekend. Add to that a special event supporting the fight against breast cancer, and the parking lot and grounds were full.

But with few other options, we decided to fight the crowd and do a tasting. Thankfully the good people at La Grange had planned well for the day, with two indoor tasting bars, and multiple out door tasting bars, all up and running, our wait in the patio bar in their back porch was very small, and we were going to their selection of wine. For those of you who have never been there, this is a place where you can make a day of it. They have 11 wines on their tasting menu, and today they had a bonus wine that wasn’t on their tasting menu. So when you go, plan on being there a while, and with their beautiful grounds, multiple fire pits, and cozy indoor and outdoor seating areas, it is a great place to bring a picnic and just sitting back and enjoying. And if you’re lucky, you’ll see their ghost that haunts their tasting room house.

Below is the complete list of the wines on their tasting menu currently, however I was bit remiss in my wine blogging duties and left my notes on the tasting bar so I will only highlight my likes and dislikes from the list:

2010 Pinot Gris

2009 Viognier
2008 Fletcher’s Chardonnay
2009 Cuvee Blanc
2010 Rose’ of Merlot
2009 Benoni’s Dead but still Red
2009 Cab Franc
2010 Merlot
2009 Meritage
General’s Battle Field Red
2008 Tannat
2009 Snort

On the good Category, the 2009 Cuvee Blanc has a big lush tropical fruit nose. It moves into a pineapple spice taste, great balance of acid in this wine to make a delicious versatile wine. Other good wines are the 2010 Merlot which is a red fruit bomb with tannins and balance. It could use some time on the bottle for aging, but it showed great promise. The current vintage of General’s Battle Field Red was also a surprise, it is a meritage blend that showed good fruit, balanced tannins but maybe a touch too much oak. No matter how you sliced it, it would pair well with a juicy grilled steak.

The Bad category for me included the 2010 Rose’ of Merlot and the 2010 Pinot Gris, The Rose just had a funky nose that I couldn't really get by. It lacked flavor, structure or layers, and the funk re-appeared on the back of the tongue. The 2010 Pinot Gris tasted more like a chardonnay then a Pinot Gris. I think it must have been dominated by new French oak and that is why it had those characteristics.It lacked flavor, structure or layers, and the funk re-appeared on the back of the tongue. The 2010 Pinot Gris tasted more like a chardonnay then a Pinot Gris. I think it must have been dominated by new French oak and that is why it had those characteristics.

There was an additional wine not on the list above on their tasting menu, it was a Norton, but not a VA Norton. The grapes of the primary V=varietal Norton were brought in from Missouri due to the struggles they have had in VA. This wine was blended with a VA Cab Sav, and the results were very good. It is a great table wine, and the tasting showed bright red fruit with hints of smoke on the nose. The taste was more distinct red fruit, but the Cab Sav adds just hints of camp fire smoke to the finish. Medium body and well balanced, it was our selection to enjoy while enjoying the grounds at La Grange.

After finding a location near one of the fire pits,

we poured a couple of glasses. We noticed that the wine was very cloudy and we were concerned the bottle was bad. However, the taste was we remembered at the tasting bar so we figured it must be just be a touch of the sediment floating around. The sun’s low angle really gave this wine a funny look but thankfully it still tasted good. Upon seeing the same signs when we returned home and poured another glass, I researched bottle shock, however it didn’t seem to fit the billet. I’m not really sure what was going on with this bottle, but as long as it doesn’t affect the flavor, I guess I won’t complain.

All I wanna do is a zooma zoom zoom and a boom boom…..Syrah that is…

So I admit, usually when I go out to eat, I’m not looking for good or unusual wines, especially
on the by the glass section of wine. So when the wife and I went out for date night last Saturday at the Light Horse restaurant in Old Town Alexandria, I stuck to beer. However, my wife made me slightly regret that decision with her selection of the 2010 Boom Boom Syrah.

This wine was very unique.

I believe they served it a bit warm but aside from that, the wine drew me in mostly because of its nose. At first whiff, I thought the wine was going to be funky. I couldn’t identify what I smelled, and then hit me, salty warm caramel. I took several whiffs, and that was certainly what I smelled. I don’t believe I have ever got that from a wine and was intrigued as to what this Syrah was going to taste like.

Thankfully the wine didn’t disappointment me; it came right out with lush bright red fruit on the pallet, a little acidity for balance, no notable tannins, and then a finishing hint of the salty caramel on the finish that was prevalent in the nose.

Overall I was intrigued by the wine, my home research found me pleasantly surprised that this bottle cost about $15.00 a bottle, comes from Walla Walla, Washington, and is made by Charles Smith Wine Maker. If my wine collection was running low and I didn’t have time for a trip to VA wine country, I’d have no problem picking up a few bottles of this for an everyday drinking wine.

Spicy Food Meet Spicy Wine

Well if you can’t tell my by total disappearance from the blog world, my job has been keeping me insanely busy. If work didn’t have me hopping, my seemingly endless social engagements have. So last Friday when my wife was excited to make a delicious dinner and relax at home, well I couldn’t believe my life was accommodating. Arriving home, I got a text. “You should put a white in the fridge.” Looking forward to a good local wine, it was my surprise when a NY wine flew off the shelf and into the freezer right before I went to fight insane rush hour traffic to pick up my wife at the metro. A “QUICK” trip to whole foods, and we were ready to tear into our wine selection while preparing dinner.

On the dinner menu, Pumpkin Curry with shrimp over roasted spaghetti squash.











On the wine list, Goose Watch 2009 Traminette.

















Goose Watch is a small winery on the North West shore of Cayuga Lake in the Finger Lake region of New York. For those not totally familiar with Traminette, it is a Gewurztaminer hybrid developed at Cornell University. With the spicy qualities of the Gewurztaminer, this wine promised to meld beautifully with the spicy curry my wife was making.


With curry just about finished, it was time to open the wine and see what we had in store. The nose contained lush tropical fruits of melon with hints of orange peel. The taste greeted you with more bright citrus fruit. A mild acidic to round out the mouth, and once it warmed a little, a spicy little finish.


The pumpkin curry paired as advertised with this wine. It gracefully balanced the acidic fruit of the wine with spicy sauce of the curry, leaving a rich full mouth spicy clean feel. I’d recommend this wine with almost any spicy selection.

A Lucky Irish Vintner wishes a hardy congratulation….

My wife is starting a new job as a production editor and it seemed like everyone got to say congratulations and left me holding the bag. So I decided this Sunday I would make her a delicious dinner and let her relax on the evening before she started her new job. As a bonus, I would let her select any wine in our collection to pair with her dinner. No surprise to me she was sure she wanted a wine from a winery we discovered back on 2007 that sits up on the hill just of I-66 in Markham, VA.

We are big red wine fans so starting with our first visit we fell in love with Chateau O’Brien. The owner Howard O’Brien is a firm believer that all great wines start in the vineyard, and you can’t rush good wine. It shows in the quality from his standard collection all the way through the best in his cellar collection.

I was sure my wife would reach back and pick one of the bottles of his 2007 vintage bottles we have hiding in our cellar. So imagine my shock when a '08 came out, but as I studied the label and I saw it was his Petite Verdot it all made sense. I quickly dumped it into our decanter to allow it to start opening up while I watch the beginning of the New England vs Dallas football game. At half time I started the dinner (see picture below) assured that the wine would pair perfectly with the steak with blue cheese and mushroom sauce I was preparing.


With dinner ready it was time to enjoy some wine. I initially got a warm burst of deep red fruit almost black raspberry on the nose. With a few more smells there was a herbal quality that also accompanied the black raspberry smell. The initial taste was dark red fruit with a full body. It had an earthy finish with a pop of mild tannins on the back of the tongue. It paired well with the blue cheese and mushrooms. The second glass exhibited more red fruit and better tannin structure. It was very enjoyable to sip on a full stomach and paired well with chocolate nuggets that we had for dessert.

8 Ozs at 8 chains....

Well none of our own pictures today but had to comment on today's trip to 8 Chains North winery...In a few words...Why don't stop here more?


Our tasting include three whites and three reds. A informative funny tasting host...and topped off by a relaxing chat on their indoor couch while sipping on delicious VA wine.

Our overall thoughts was solid from top to bottom.

The first wine in their tasting was there 2009 Sauvignon Blanc-- It had a dandy lion wild flower nose. A nice flavor of flowers and greens with a medium heavy weight. It was a great sipping wine and my choice for relaxing with after our tasting. My wife and I both don't remember enjoying this wine last time we sampled it. We surely did this time.

Next up was there Loco Vino the 2009 the 2010 vintages. It is a fifty fifty blend of Vidal and Traminette. The 2009 nine exhibited great fruit with a spicy slightly acidic finish. The 2010 was more fruity and although drier tasted sweeter with less acid in the finish for me. Our pourer informed us the major difference and the reason the 2010 vintage has less residual sugar was that fact that during fermentation one of the two wines temperature elevated and couldn't be brought back down accelerating the fermentation process leading to a drier wine. Both wines were very solid wines, however I did enjoy the 2009 more than the 2010. However, good luck in finding the 2009 after this weekend.

From there we moved to the 2008 Merlot. This is blended with small additions of other grapes. This lead to a wine with big rasberry tasting wine with full body, and smokey earthy finish. A very different type of Merlot than you typically get in travels around Virginia.

After that we sampled a wine also made by the wine maker at 8 Chains North but labeled by another winery that is developing in Loudon county, Otium cellars. They specialize in German varietals made in traditional German style. This time we sampled their 2009 Dornfelder. This was very dark wine that almost requires food to fully enjoy. It had ample fruit and rounded out well with a oaky mouth field. Fully enjoyable but not recommend as a porch sipping wine.

Last on our tasting tour was the 2008 Furnace mountain red. This is their Bordeaux style red wine made from five Bordeaux grapes in different proportions each year. we remember the previous vintage being a real treat with a smokey finish and were excited this recently bottled vintage. The predominant grape in this vintage was Malbec. This exhibited big red early fruit followed by a heavy dose of tannins. Maybe a bit to much for me. It burned the mouth a little. However it had long lasting flavor and shows promise to mellow with age.

We have enjoy 8 chains wines for a while now, however their white wines were a lot better than we remember on previous trips. We are excited to continue tasting here as they show off the talents of their wine make in future vintages.

C-Ville, Cider, hiking, and fun....

Well at least I lured you in...actually the title is our weekend plans. I guess wine should be in there too as I plan on hitting a dozen or so wineries over the three day weekend. I'm so excited to blog about it. Follow me on twitter @bighunter_22 to keep up as I move place to place.

To warm us up tonight, the wife made a great variation of Spanish soup with spicy chorizo from Whole Foods, and we decided to pull out some wine. While cooking and cleaning before our meal we split a delicious bottle of the bubbly. This particular bottle "BeDazzled" was one we picked up earlier this summer while in northern Michigan. Overall, we didn't enjoy the wines or wineries as much as we do here in VA, but the bubblies from northern Michigan were the exception. We found several we did like and all that we tasted were good and worth the time to taste them.

"Bedazzled" from Black Star Farms winery was the bubbly of choice tonight. A light bodied bubbly made from the pinot noir, pinot gris, chardonnay, and pinot blanc grapes, it showed a crisp nose. Its taste was of light bodied small bubble wine. It showed light pear citrus fruit. Very crisp, but no harsh burn that can accompany crisp bubblies.

To go with our Spanish soup we pulled out "Trio" from our cellar. This was wine we picked up on our July trip to Charlottesville, VA, and a fitting way to start our Charlottesville three day weekend. Trio is a featured red wine from Flying Fox Vineyards, and boast being a blend of merlot, cab franc, and petite verdot. As I recall this was given a favorable review from one of my favorite wine bloggers swirlsipsnark recently, and it was one of only two wine we brought back with us from Flying Fox, their Viognier being the other, however the long hot summer ensured the Viognier didn't last past July. Excited for good red wine, I opened it about an hour early so it had a chance to open up.

With our first glass we immediately thought Italian wine. It had muted cooked herb-y earth-y nose. It had strong early tannins mixed with young ripe raspberry taste more herbs on the tongue and a light body. Opposite of what you might think, the strong early tannins did not translate into a harsh finish. In fact it was very smooth and rounded out what is a good table wine. Although it still showed very young, being a 2008, it is not one I would recommend cellaring. Drink now and enjoy.

These two wines were a good reflection of some of the wines we picked up on other wine trips this year, and prepared us well for us to enjoy VA Wine Month, on the Charlottesville Wine Trail. This weekends theme will first time visits to wineries with stops at Pippin Hill Farm, Stinson Vineyards, Castle Hill Cider, and Lovingston Winery planned.

Hitting a Home Run....

Rarely do you combine the right wine with the right food on the right night….but when you do…HOME RUN!!!!


Last night we really hit a home run. The above picture is a bay scallop risotto with a mild bleu cheese and fennel salad that we had for our dinner. Earlier in the evening, we had discussed wine selections. With the shellfish on the menu of course we leaned to the white side, and in the end went with one of the wineries we are a wine club member of. Delfosse winery south of Charlottesville is own and managed by a great older gentleman who has meant a lot to the VA economy as a whole, Claude Delfosse.


Our Saturday night wine of choice was the 2008 Reserve d’Oraine from Delfosse winery. It is a Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay, Petite Manseng, and Viognier blend that as described on the Delfosse web site as “a rich, intensely aromatic wine with bright hints of pineapple, honey and lemon peel. Taste – This complex blend of Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc with a touch of Viognier and Petit Manseng shows bright acidity with rich citrus, and spice up front, and lemon on the finish. This elegant, well balanced wine exhibits a long finish with a bouquet of pineapple, peach, coconut and apricot well integrated with soft oak. A great example of a blend that expresses the Virginia terroir. Food Pairing – A great wine with seafood and shellfish. This wine is extremely food friendly and will also pair well with lobster and poultry in richer and creamier sauces or with pork and turkey dishes.” And we don’t typically agree with descriptions by others, the fact they recommend this wine with shellfish gets ringing endorsement from us. The initial nose contained a big floral smell with hints of honeysuckle and lilac. Upon tasting we enjoyed the flavors of dried apricot, creamy and smooth with just a hint of vanilla overtones. This might not be food friendly with all food, but for seafood or shell fish, you really can’t go wrong.

To avoid being a homey, I do have a critic of this wine. It was very temperature sensitive. We found that as this wined warmed up; its acid became more prevalent to the point of ruining the balance. The Viognier really showed through, and not necessarily in a good way. The bad after taste that can sometimes come through in VA Viognier became more prevalent when the wine warmed up. To counter this affect, we chilled it in the freezer. However, what we found there was that if allowed to get too cold the nose and complex taste of this wine became muted if not non-existent.

The Moral of the story is although this wine was a home run when served with our dinner, like a bad socialite. It was a high maintenance wine, demanding careful supervision to be kept at just the right temperature range to maintains if complex delicious flavors, balance, and delicious flavors. So I gives this wine on overall buy rating, it is not for the weak of hurt. Be prepared to nurture and coddle it to get the most of the great qualities this wine has to offer.

Does Anger affect your pallet? My First bad review…..

Question: what does former pop queen Madonna, a winery on the Leelanau Peninsula in Michigan, and a semi-dry red wine Tre Rossi have in common?

Answer: They are all the creation of Sylvio Anthony Ciccone (Madonna’s father) in one form or another.







We had made trip to northern Michigan this past summer and dedicated two days to exploring the northern Michigan wine country. While out exploring we had heard about the Ciccone Vineyard and winery, and its ties to Madonna. Having been disappointed in most of the red wines we had tasted on that trip, we got a recommendation by another winery pourer to visit Ciccone. So upon arriving, we excitedly hopped out of the car and ran for the tasting bar for what we had hoped to be some good red wines. From our memory, their red wines were mostly solid and since we came home with a bottle of Tre Rossi we assumed it would be a good red wine to help me get over a particularly bad day in which if they had the ability to fire me, they might have. Not because I’m not a very hard worker, but because I refuse to put up with mediocrity and sometimes forget where I really am in the pecking order.


According to their web site, Tre Rossi is described to be “A hearty semi-dry red wine made with French hybrids grapes showing aromas and flavors of plums, cherries, and spices.” This sounded like a wine that should be quite drinkable by itself, but they said "it should also be good with duck, wild game, fish and tomato sauce dishes."










Immediately upon opening, the wife and I were in agreement, we had made a bad pick!!! The nose showed no sign of fruit, and had a tomato/green pepper smell if any could be detected at all. The wine was a light in body. Medium firm middle tongue tannins and a dirty, earthy, tomato sauce tasting finish with no fruit to be found whatsoever. Deciding it just needed some more time to open up and to bring out the better parts of the wine; we slowly sipped our poured glasses and put the rest of the bottle into the decanter. It was one of those nights so we were going to finish it good, bad, or indifferent. Although the wine did get a little bigger, more expanded tannins, and the tomato/green pepper flavors became more blended, it never really developed into a good sipping wine. It could be that it is better suited to be eaten with food or maybe it just wasn’t our type wine. Who knows? All I can say it would not be one I would recommend to friends, family, or my boss no matter how mad she had made me today. Having tasted many bad wines, this wasn’t one of those. It was very well made, good balance and structure, but overall its flavor was lacking.


Has anyone else experienced a well-made one that you just couldn’t get your pallet to enjoy? Do you think it was my anger I was feeling?

In the Vines Series #4

As promised, I’m back to my in the vines series of blogs. As a recap, this series covers a long holiday weekend of events I participated in at two local VA wineries. We are currently about a third of the way through a tour with Hillsborough wine maker Kerem Baki. We are on his side hill overlooking his large patch of Fer Servadou grapes. He had just finished explaining how picking a vineyard site can be very difficult. You not only have to find the ingredients of good draining soil that is not too nutrient rich as vines need to struggle, a site that offers wind to keep your canopies dry, and sun to help photosynthesis develop and ripen the fruit as the grapes are the secret behind good wine. The Fer Servadou grapes are popular grapes at Hillsborough making appearances in their Ruby and Bloodstone wines. Before discovering Hillsborough , I had not heard of Fer Servadou let alone had it in a wine. However, Bloodstone has quickly become one of my favorite wines offered from Hillsborough and Fer Servadou no doubt plays a big role in that.


From there we strolled to the other side of the vineyard and along the way Kerem explained the model behind their vineyard management. Unlike some vineyards that pay random crews at different times to prune and groom their vineyards with oversight from a vineyard manager; Hillsborough has 4 people full time employees charged with maintaining their vines. This keeps those four plenty busy, but it also helps them know the individual plants, and allows them adequate time to spot problems as they are developing which can mean the difference between a good and great year of fruit.


The next grape was my personal favorite single variety when done right, Petite Verdot. Unlike the states’ choice of Viognier, I believe Petite Verdot could be the VA’s signature grape. In my travels around VA it is popular enough, yet unique enough that although every winery could make one, and no two taste the same. But enough on my preaching as to what VA’s signature grape should be, let’s get back to the tour. As we walked up one of the rows of PV, one of my tour mates noted plump lush groups of grapes on the ground. Kerem explained they limit the production of the vines, and they do that by going through the vines and selecting the damaged or incomplete clumps of grapes and removing them. They had recently trimmed back their PV leaving the remaining grapes to get the full attention of the vine during the last four to six weeks of ripening. With the looks of the grapes that were left behind, I’m excited for the wine that they produce. Hopefully Irene and Lee didn’t leave to much water for the vines to utilize.



From there we went on the hike part of the vineyard walk. We walked up the long row of PV, across the dirt entry road between the tasting room and the farm house and then climbed to highest part of the vineyard. From the top of their vineyard we found ourselves surrounded by the more traditional wine grapes Merlot, Cab Franc, and Cab Sauvignon. After finishing our delicious samples of these more traditional wine grapes it was time to head back to the tasting room to enjoy the fruits of Hillsborough hard labor. under the sunset.



We decided our wine would be Garnet to go with our dinner. I left this vineyard tour with a lot more knowledge of all it takes to maintain a vineyard, but more importantly how much work goes into the care and feeding for grapes long before the hectic time of harvest and fermentation. It makes me more appreciative of those who create the wines I enjoy week in and week out. I encourage all my readers if they get a chance to spend some time taking a walk with the wine maker at Hillsborough . You’ll be glad you did.

Taking a break…(A good Group…The winery wasn’t so hot)

I know many of you are holding your breath for the next in my in the vine series, but I’m taking break to blog about a new wine group that wife I joined. We have enjoyed touring VA wineries by ourselves, but sometimes it is nice to share our thoughts with others, and let’s face it, it’s nice to have some social interaction while on the VA wine trail. So to scratch that itch, we went on to meetup.com and found a group that seemed to be the perfect one for us. The Virginia Wine Club had a good number of members, regular offerings of meet ups, and focused on mostly VA wine. This seemed to meet all of our requirements.

So looking at the future offerings, we found one that would be good to check out the group. However, our first experience was to be one found not in VA but a favorite of ours in Maryland, Black Ankle Vineyards. So with high hopes, we headed out with what we thought was going to be about 18 others to meet at Black Ankle. For those of you who haven’t been there, Black Ankle is about 1.5 hours North of D.C. in Mid Maryland, and slightly East North East of Fredrick, Maryland about 8 miles north of I-70.

Upon arriving things were really crazy, a groupon or living social bus was in the middle of their tasting. A second group was there for a tour offered every Saturday and Sunday at 1 P.M. as weather permits to get a full tour of the vineyard (See Black Ankle web site for details), and then somewhere in there was the people we were supposed to be “meeting” with.
Watching the bus leave, the vineyard tour group started tasting, and still no obvious group of 18 formed, the wife and I started our tasting. Meanwhile, I checked into the group’s site to see if anyone was commenting on what was going on.

Our tasting started with their 2010 Viognier. Although the nose was a great melon floral mix, the wine has such a bad acid bitter middle that it was almost dumped. If you know me, I can’t dump wine, but this is the closest I had ever come. Since the wine wasn’t that striking I took this opportunity to check the clubs website, and found other members had arrived and after a quick comment, I was directed to where I could find them.

Following the Viognier the 2010 Bedlam was poured. It is a white blend of Viognier 36%, 23% Muscat, 17% Gruner Veltiner, 17 % Albarino, and 7 % Chardonnay. This too had a very pleasant fruit and floral nose, and was much better white wine; it still had some of the bitter characteristics of the Viognier.

On the red side on their standard tasting they started with their 2010 Passeggiata, this was interesting wine blend of Syrah and Viognier wines. This was the best of their red wine standard tasting wines for the wife and I at least. They followed this up by their 2009 Rolling Hills which is almost a Bordeaux blend with Cab Sav, Cab Franc, Malbec, PV, and Syrah. It had muted red fruits on the noise the continued into the wine with an earthy finish.

That ended their standard tasting you get for five dollars, for an additional five you get to taste two of their bigger reds and finish with their red port style wine. Not wanting to be gipped on my experience, we continued with their “reserve tasting.”

The first of their reserve reds was 2008 Crumbling. Rock, it’s a blend of all the grapes in the Rolling Hills with a little Merlot to add complexity. This showed a lot of bright red fruit mostly raspberry, the finished off with light but firm tannins. This wine can be paired with lots of food, and the both will be better for it.

After that we moved on to their Slate wine, a blend of their Cab Sav, Syrah, Cab Franc, Malbec, and PV. It had much more earthy herby nose than the Crumbling Rock. It also had a much deeper earth finish that previous reserve. However, I think it is much less versatile due to those characteristics.

Lastly, they offered their port style wine Terra Dulce I, it contained a blend of all their red (and white!) grapes. It is a delicious dessert wine. Although much higher in alcohol content, it is not burning or over power in the mouth and only after it goes down the throat does it have the alcoholic warming affect. It gets a high recommendation from this red neck; even for those who don’t typically like dessert or port wines.

The wife and I decided to take a bottle of the Passeggiata back to the table to enjoy. Once the rest of our group finished their tasting, we enjoyed an after of wine drinking and discussing of wine, economy, politics, and just getting to know one another. As a first experience, I would say the Virginia wine club was a big thumbs up, and the wife and I are excited to go to the next meeting of wine lovers of VA. As for the winery, we thought all in all the wines were only OK, and the best ones were well over priced for the market they are in. It is a shame as Black Ankle was a favorite of ours for the Maryland wine community.